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Your galleryThe Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan
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- Where does your eye go next?
- What would you ask about this work?
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Start with the child sitting at the bottom edge and follow his gesture across the water to the river’s edge, where the baptism takes place half hidden by the crowd.
Lucas van Leyden tucks the baptism itself into a wooded grove in the middle distance and gives the foreground to onlookers in turbans and fur-trimmed coats. The Art Institute of Chicago contrasts this with Martin Schongauer’s older engraving of the subject: with no haloes or angels, Lucas makes the event look like an ordinary gathering, and a small child points the way.
Engraving in black on ivory laid paper · Image/sheet, trimmed within platemark: 14.3 × 18.2 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Northern Renaissance
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan
- Artist
- Lucas van Leyden Netherlandish, c. 1494-1533
- Date
- about 1510
- Medium
- Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image/sheet, trimmed within platemark: 14.3 × 18.2 cm (5 11/16 × 7 3/16 in.)
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.